The Long Way Home
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: Igor Karkaroff is on the run, trying to escape the wrath of Voldemort that he is certain is to follow. He travels across the globe, trying to discover a way he can escape for a long time without notice. On the way, he has the chance to go home.
1. Chapter 1

**Ravenclaw HoH. Round 3, Standard, Houses Competition. Prompt: [Theme] Travelling around the world (Include a minimum of three different locations), WC: 1044**

**I present, Igor Karkaroff, after he ran away from Voldemort in GoF.**

**0-0-0-0**

He'd been on the run for six months. Six months of stifling sunshine, torrid rain, and miserable mental instability. Why? Voldemort was chasing him. He knew it; he could feel it. Like a prickle on the back of his neck, a feeling that he was being watched. Then he got further away from them. From Scotland, he had moved quickly through the English counties - Northumberland, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and all the way down through to Dover where he managed to catch a ferry across the English Channel.

Igor had tried not to speak to anyone, to remain invisible. He left the ferry with a bout of seasickness and stepped into the arid French air, feeling slightly closer to home. It was a bitter victory with almost no relief. It would be yet more months before he would reach the vast and furious landscape of snow-strewn Russia.

There was no way that Voldemort would abate the chase, so perhaps there was a way to wait him out, to stay hidden - a secret magic, of sorts. Europe would tell him these secrets.

Five weeks he spent in France. Idyllic, wicker-window streets, multi-coloured paving slabs, and a language almost as thick and swirling as his own. It was beautiful, in a way, and yet he couldn't totally appreciate it. He had to keep moving. Every three nights, a different room. A vacant house, a hollow of a tree, resting in square corners, with nothing more than a newspaper for some semblance of comfort.

Although the days were warm enough, the nights were not. They brought an unparalleled and unsettling chill that could not be moved with the breaking of morning sunlight. The cold was as fixed as his fate. Imminent and unbending.

Some days were better than others, of course.

Some days he felt stronger, walked for longer, found a better place to move on or stay a while.

Some days he was weak, and alone, and held the anxious weight in his belly.

From France, he moved through Switzerland to an even more enchanting Austria. It was a little more like home, with sweeping fields and monstrous mountains towering seemingly above the clouds and the gods and the weather itself. Merlin would have quivered at the sight of them, had he been there to assist Igor in his ferocious journey. Motivated by half-happiness, he moved more quickly through Austria, dancing the border between it and Germany. He spent a glorious fortnight in Viehhofen, locked away in a villa, encased in forest and rock. Voldemort felt a million miles away, and Igor could certainly have gone on believing that.

But it wasn't true. And, with that thought, he moved on.

Three days in Salzburg was all else he could remember of Austria. Slovenia was much similar anyway. Croatia was extraordinarily different from both.

Croatia seemed to be built of rock. It was yellowing-orange crag, topped on yellowing-orange crag. Where Austria had been quaint and idyllic, Croatia was hot and unbearable. Sleeping outside was a viable option, though the ground burned his skin at first. The terracotta roofing was only more testament to the heat, glowing practically red in the midday sun. At least the waters were pleasant - azure and clean. People were pleasant too, but it did nothing to stir Igor's unhappiness with the place, and such unhappiness meant his journey took longer.

Thus, three months in, there he was, passing the border from Croatia into Serbia, a whispered incantation allowing him entrance to the country. He could not comprehend the meaning or fashion of border control, but he would comply to some extent.

Serbia was the stuff of fairytales. Towering castles, endless landscapes, and a dim, summer sunshine. He felt that he was travelling through Ancient Albion itself and that Arthur might spring himself from the thickets and the woodland at any moment. Merlin was surely watching over him for, although he acknowledged the familiar weight on his chest and the tingling of his skin, he did not see Death Eaters.

Igor was not so foolish as to think that they were not truly there, however.

Bulgaria was even more mystical, and it was here that he discovered something remarkable.

_A train to nowhere,_ the elderly wizard told him at the back of a church. _You board, and it vanishes like it was never there. You have heard of Hogwarts? _He replied that he had_. The magical barrier is much the same and in the same place. King's Cross St. Pancras._

Frustration rose within him. King's Cross St. Pancras, in London. Two thousand miles, back where he had started. This blessing of a miracle was a wonderfully good thing, and yet there remained the ache of disappointment that the Pilgrimage across Europe was a waste.

That wasn't it, though. It wasn't a waste at all. And he was so close to home, now.

Turkey was the most formidable journey he had acquitted himself with, in the hot sunshine for eight weeks. He passed through the end of Summer and into the early beginnings of a cool Autumn in the same climate. It was miserable. Skin peeling, clothes dragging unhealthily loosely on his body, and entire being exhausted beyond recovery or any attempt at relief.

At last, mid-November, he was in his homeland. Broken and harrowed as he was, but he was there. A cool winter wind blew across his face, whirling his hair into snags, blistering his extremities, and chapping his cheeks. It was less of a struggle once he knew he was in Russia. The language was like memories spilling from his lips, tumbling out with his unused, rasping voice, but it was comprehensible. He had directions, transportation, and soon enough he was outside his family home.

It was a modest house, in a small village, quaint and untidy. The windows were half-boarded up, presumably from the weather. Snow was falling more thickly now, damp and freezing hard like the beginnings of a great glacier.

Igor knocked three times, not really expecting anything at all. His mother would be very old, his father, dead. He shouldn't expect a thing.

And yet, there was a noise from inside. Maybe it was a trick of the wind. Maybe…

A whispered charm, the door unlocked, and Igor stepped inside.

**0-0-0-0**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ravenclaw HoH. Round 3, Drabble, Houses Competition. Prompt: [Event] Somebody coming home after an extended time away, WC: 391**

**Igor has managed to find his way home. Translations are at the bottom. Please excuse my phonetic/basic Russian.**

**0-0-0-0**

"_Mama_?" Igor called into the dark house. "_Tbi tam_?"

He could sense something in the shadows. After six months of being on the run from Voldemort, he couldn't help going home. The crowds of France, the inclement weather of Austria, and the stifling heat of Turkey. All were beautiful places, but nothing compared to home. And it had been so long since he had been here, in that house, calling out for his mother.

The last time he had been home… It was long before his wife. Long before he had been asked to remove her memories by The Dark Lord. He suspected them dead now, his wife, Mathilde, and his child. She must be long gone. He would not harm her by seeking her out, especially when she did not know who he was. She would be disgusted with the man he had become. But he just couldn't help returning home.

"_Igor? Eto tbi_?"

Her voice came almost out of nowhere, a wisp of noise rising from the dark and the dust and the cold. Outside, snow was falling, soft against the windows, slowly building the landscape he knew and missed so much. Home was not the same as Durmstrang.

_"Da, Mama. Eto ya._"

A light flickered into existence, feet from him. His mother, her face wasting away, sat in the old armchair that his father had occupied in his better days. Yuri Karkaroff had been dead for many years now. For a moment, Igor was afraid. He had been away for so long that he had no idea how his mother would react to him. She had been alone for all this time, ageing quietly. Would she forgive him for leaving her?

"_Moy ditya_," she said softly, beckoning him closer. He moved into the light a little more, no longer terrified of her reaction. "_Igor, I am so glad to see you. Where is Mathilde_?"

He knelt before her. "_Mama, I have done terrible things_."

She merely smiled at him and placed a hand to his bearded cheek. "_Moy ditya, there is nothing you could do to make me refuse you forgiveness. I love you, Igor, and I have missed you terribly._" His mother pinched his cheek and, laughing, said, "_Now, make me a cup of something warm and we can talk about anything that is on your mind._"

**0-0-0-0**

**Translations:**

**_Tbi tam_: are you there ; _Eto tbi_: is this you ; _Da, Mama. Eto ya_: Yes mother, it is me ; _Moy ditya_: my child**

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
